


Cheesy Christmas Songs

by Merixcil



Series: Advent Fics 2017 [4]
Category: Arrested Development
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24522439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: Michael is in denial about pretty much everything
Relationships: George Oscar "Gob" Bluth/Michael Bluth
Series: Advent Fics 2017 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767640
Kudos: 13





	Cheesy Christmas Songs

**Author's Note:**

> Take note of the pairing - sibling incest lies ahead. The relationship is established and while there's no physical intimacy in this fic it's heavily implied that there has been in the recent past.
> 
> On a lighter note: I've never written for this fandom before and I found the tone really hard to wrap my head around BUT it was super fun to write, hence this being much longer than planned

Christmas was coming and Michael Bluth was trying not to acknowledge the upcoming holidays. After a long battle with the city planning authority, that had concluded when the council decreed that the office block the Bluth Company worked out of was never legally authorised, they had been sued for most of the year’s revenue and were in no position to pay their staff the bonuses that had been promised to them for the best part of the year.

“Happy holidays!” The new Bluth company secretary, Veronica, grinned at Michael as he passed her on his way to his office.

Michael paused. “Happy what now?”

“Oh, Michael.” Veronica winked, turning back to the stack of contracts she was processing, humming jungle bells under her breath. "Make sure to check your email - I sent you something fun this morning."

She was wearing a hideous bright red jumper and her desk was strewn with tinsel. Strange, Michael thought to himself, it was almost like she thought Christmas was coming. Which was ridiculous, because Christmas couldn’t possibly be coming when the company was so deep in the red. He needed to call Barry, see if there wasn’t a last minute loophole that might get them out of this mess. It didn’t seem right that they were having to foot the bill for someone else’s mistakes. It wasn’t like the Bluth Company had built this office block, right? He was pretty sure his father wouldn’t have been able to cover up that lie for thirty five years.

Michael paused midway through dialling the number for Barry’s office. Was it really worth the cost of the call plus the hour he would inevitably be charged for a ten minute conversation, just to be lied to about how very well within the law all of his father’s plans were?

Setting the phone back in its cradle, Michael rested his head in his hands and tried to will his problems away. Looking down at what should have been the smooth oak top of his desk but was in fact littered with scrapes and burns from various members of the family trying to convince themselves they could do his job better than him. And right there, next to the _Motherboy 2kalways_ carved into the wood by a hook, was a bright yellow post it note with a message scrawled in Gob’s handwriting.

_Lov u bro. Gna help u feel better xxx <3_

It was a very threatening note. Aside from the fact that no one used text abbreviations like that anymore, the last thing Michael wanted was for Gob to use any of his patented feel better techniques on him in public.

Flashes of the night before crossed Michael’s mind, and he pushed them down into whatever dark spot he was currently storing Christmas in. As long as he didn’t think about any of that in the cold light of day it was as good as not real.

Luckily, the phone chose that moment to ring and Michael was saved the embarrassment of having to acknowledge any of his faults. “Lindsay!” He grinned into the receiver. “How are you?”

“What are you so happy about?” His sister snapped. “It doesn’t matter. Michael, I need money.”

“Well of course, I’ll send a cheque right on over.”

“Really?” Lindsay softened instantaneously on the other end of the line. “You’re such a good brother, Michael. I never doubt-“

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Michael had no idea why he was still talking in his best ‘happy to hear from you’ voice. “I’m not going to give you any more money, Lindsay, I wrote you a huge cheque last week.”

“Yeah, well I already spent it.”

Michael blinked. “That was for Maeby’s tuition.”

Lindsay barely paused, it was almost impressive. “Right! Of course! That’s what I spent it on. You know how it is with these private schools, they want it all in one go.”

Unknown to Michael, Maeby wasn’t enrolled in a private school, as her parents had failed to come up with the tuition when requested. Instead, she had acquired a fake ID claiming she was eighteen years old and had started attending a local community college so as to stay out of the way of her family as much as possible. Her cousin, George Michael, was crushed when he started school that semester and discovered she was no longer in any of his classes.

“Besides,” Lindsay continued. “It’s nearly Christmas! How am I supposed to get the rest of the family presents if I don’t have any money?”

Michael suddenly envisioned a future in which the family exclusively gave each other presents paid for by company money they had wheedled out of him. Under no circumstances was he going to let that happen. “I...is…is it nearly Christmas?” he stammered. “You know what, Lindsay? The Company is in a very bad place right now and…and even if I wanted to give you the money, which I don’t, I can’t. Ok? So how about you think about what you can buy on your own, you know. Living within your means.”

Lindsay turned to ice just as quickly as she had melted. “Typical! Just typical! You always talk about how important family is to you but just as soon as….”

Michael stopped listening to his sister, figuring that she’d soon tire herself out. He started checking through his email as Lindsay ran through a colourful array of expletives, wading through stacks of spam to get to the email Veronica had promised him.

When he found it, he frowned. None of what Veronica had sent through looked particularly fun. Lindsay continued to rant and rave about the money she needed while he read through reams of scanned documents that had apparently been found at the back of the storage closet after they’d had to clean it out to let the plumber through that morning.

(The toilet from downstairs had been leaking up into their office space. Don’t ask)

What Veronica had found was an old planning application form and associated documents, all stamped DENIED in big red letters, and at the bottom of all of them was a signature that belonged unmistakably to-

“Mom.” Michael breathed. Of course. Of bleeping course.

Lindsay made a sound of disgust. “Urgh! Did you just mistake me for mum? I’m not that old! Screw this, you can buy your own Christmas presents.” And with that she hung up.

Not that Michael noticed that the line had gone dead, he was too busy searching through the mess of contracts and bills that had all been authorised by one Lucile Bluth some thirty five years previously, supposedly hoping to build a block of offices right where the Bluth Company headquarters were now based.

“This isn’t happening.” Michael hissed as he filtered through dozens of incriminating documents. At least he hadn’t called Barry before he saw this.

The strains of something seasonal and annoying cut through Michael’s concentration, quiet enough that he thought his brain was just trying to torture him with thoughts of Christmas till he tried humming The Final Countdown to get it out of his head and he realised that the sound was definitely part of the environment.

Michael got up from his desk and stuck his head out of his office door to be sure that the song wasn’t coming from elsewhere in the building.

“Hi Michael!” Veronica smiled at him. “Did you get my email?”

She was, in Michael's opinion, entirely too happy about digging up all the evidence needed to get his feet in the fire if he decided to pursue the planning issue any further, but unlike Kitty and Starla she was a rather competent administrator and he didn’t want to risk alienating her. “Yes. Yes I did, thank you Veronica. Hey, no one’s playing music in the office are they?”

“I don’t think so, it’s not the Christmas party yet!” Veronica giggled.

“Right.” Michael turned back into his office where the song was definitely still playing. That Elton John Christmas number with the frantic piano that Gob always wound up singing at karaoke no matter what time of year it was.

Michael slammed his forehead into his computer screen midway through double checking to be sure it wasn’t the source of the sound. Gob. Of course. He made his way to the window and pulled back the blinds to see his brother standing on the street below, holding the old boombox he used to blast his Franklin tapes on with a sprig of Holly in his mouth.

“Gob, what are you doing?” Michael called down, throwing open the window.

Gob started trying to speak but his words were muffled by the holly. In the end he spat out the plant so that it landed on the pavement along with a wad of rather bloody looking spittle and he had to turn the music off to make himself heard. “I can’t come cheer my most favourite little brother up at work?”

“Wow, Buster really doesn’t get a look in does he?” Michael replied, louder than he intended.

Gob’s mouth cocked into a lazy excuse for a sultry smile. “Well, I don’t find my time with Buster as _pleasurable_ as my time with you, Mikey.”

Michael felt the blood draining from his face, flashes of the night before coming back to him in richer detail. Uncomfortably naked memories that he sorely wished he could stop making for himself. “Hey, Gob, listen, how about you come up here and we can talk about…all of that…more privately?”

Gob didn’t drop his smile. If anything, he doubled down, letting his voice slip into a register that Michael liked far more than he would ever admit out loud. “Naughty boy, Michael. Getting up to all sorts of extra-circumfrential activities at work. Did my note get you all hot and bothered and ready for it?”

He probably meant extra-curricular, but Michael wasn’t about to correct him, not when a gaggle of middle management Bluth Company employees on their way out to a mid-morning meeting caught the tail end of what Gob said and graced him and Michael with a set of disapproving stares.

“It’s a joke!” Michael called after them, trying very hard to laugh. There had to be a way to get all his employees to forget that Gob was his brother.

Gob dropped his smile. “It’s not a joke, Michael.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…I don’t…people aren’t going to understand-“

“Our love is not a joke!” Gob bellowed, throwing his arms wide and dropping the boombox hard enough that it cracked in two where it hit the ground. 

Michael closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. “Would you please come upstairs, Gob?”

“So you can ravish me in your office?”

“Well, I’m not-“

“While I play Step Into Christmas on your computer?”

“I don’t think-“

“And crank it up real high so the employees can't hear what we’re doing?”

“Gob, no way are-“

“I’ll be right up.” Gob ducked under the awnings and into the building, leaving the remnants of the boombox on the sidewalk. Michael stared down at it, sadly. He was probably going to have to clean up that mess as well.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted as part of a multi chaptered 'advent fics' fic that I'm trying to split up. If you think you've read it before, you probably have


End file.
